If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Prius Experience

After 3 months and 7,000 miles with my Prius Touring model, I am convinced that the policy/media pundits are determined to dismiss the Prius as yet another PC symbol - something out of charecter with mainstream American thinking. And GM is clearly misleading the public with its halfhearted efforts - throwing in an oversize starter motor/alternator combination under the hood of regular Saturn models and callling them "hybrids."
My Prius averages 50 MPG, carrrying four people at over 70 MPH. Last week I was rearended at about 30 MPH by a 92 Chrysler New Yorker. Amazingly, the the rear bumper protected me and the car, and the repair bill is about $1,500 - imagine what it would be if it were a Volvo or a Mercedes!
JRR

Getting over 50 mpg

Getting over 50 mpg is quite easy if you want to. Do the following:
1) Inflate the front tires to 42 psi.
2) Inflate the rear tires to 40 psi. Check these at least once every three weeks or more often.
3) Spend time in the right lanes instead of the left lanes where reasonable. 4) Accelerate evenly. Note the key word is even, not necessarily slow. The Prius engine and battery like to optimize at a given pedal position. If this position is changing constantly, it is harder to optimize. The one driving habit that really distracts from good mpg is moving the gas all over the pedal range quickly.
5) Coast, then brake. The Prius will really run up the MPG by coasting when you see that red light in the distance. In a conventional car, red means "anger". In a Prius, red means "relax".

You need to buy 4 Toyota what one American Car puts back into this country.

ITs sad when people sell out there country to be "In Style"

When people dont relize these cars millage is fake and how buying this over priced add event is terrable.

Toyota is a horrable company.

I have read your other posts as well as I have been checking out this forum and still can't figure out why you bother. They are pathetic with little accurate data. Does someone pay you to be here? If you hate these cars why are you on here polluting the constructive threads that are taking place. Take a turn for the better and get on some Ford or GM sights and say something positive rather than spend your days waisting everyone else's time on hybrid sights giving negative misinformation.